So trying not to rant at the moment, I’ve already done that on the Mercs forums (hidden area). There’s issues there which are steadily coming to a head as people get irritated at inactivity by people who are supposed to be the leaders. I’m actually one of those leaders but it’s kinda like being the person that a pollster always goes to when they need to figure the pulse of what’s going on. Ok, I started the Mercs guild off with a suggestion on the work forums but had to give up the top job after about 9 months because :
It was causing me lots of stress
The time online contributed to …
The lack of sleep contributed to …
Time on forums contributed to …
The …’s being reduced performance at work. When a game becomes a job, that’s bad enough. I’ve known a few people who have been effectively trapped into having guild or corporation (in Eve) management effectively become a second job and they’ve hated that their game time is effectively for organising things instead of having fun. Where it gets bad is when the job/game starts affecting performance in Real Life stuff like your actual job or being free to do as you please in an evening instead of having to ride herd on the guild.
Just had a thought that if you replace “guild” with “kids”, then a lot more people may emphasize with the above ! But whereas you can step back from a game, you can’t step back from being a parent – you can however, have much more influence on your kid(s)’s behaviour than on people you only know online. Plus there’s babysitters for when you need a break.
I’ve stepped back from the Warcraft world a few times in the past, mainly because people still seem to see me as the person who leads. They just tend to see the results they’re interested in instead of the personal cost that comes from having a anti-fanclub that didn’t like being on the receiving end of being kicked by the Icey one. Sometimes, I get to look at what it’s really like to be a cop, warts and all. After a flare-up at the weekend, I even got a message saying “we should do something about this”, from someone who really meant I should do something about it. This came from someone who’s supposed to be Number 2 co-Leader in the guild to a person who’s not even supposed to be an officer.
I be rantin’ again 😉 But not for long because I’m missing the excellent Demolition Man.
The real questions I have around my impending withdrawal from Warcraft and the politics are :
Am I running ? Am I looking to focus on stuff that’s important like real life ? Am I looking to use the stepping back to try and get the other officers doing their jobs ?
Maybe I’m running, maybe I’ve accepted that the problems in the guild aren’t really my problems any more. I started the guild and therefore have a deep attachment to it but I also passed on the responsibility. Still feels like I’m running though. Happy to ignore problems but not so happy about running from them.